


The waiting Game.

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Children don't have the guile to lie, they play favourites in their formative years, prefer one parent over another, Walter knows he was loved, a coin pressed into the palm of his hand and a son who sweated, trembled, until Walter made it home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The waiting Game.

Children don’t have the guile to lie, they play favourites in their formative years, prefer one parent over another; Walter knows he was loved, a coin pressed into the palm of his hand and a son who trembled, sweated, until Walter came home.

He has photos laid out, a half completed jigsaw across mottled carpet, Peter at three; Peter at one, Peter at seven, twelve, seven. He doesn’t want to forget his son, Peter loved custard, built homemade radios; he flipped coins and adored magic. Peter called him dad and he wouldn’t give up until he could comfort his father, until he could tell Walter he wasn’t afraid to die. That was his son and Walter’s never found the words to describe how ridiculous it was, a role-reversal that shouldn’t exist, the first fissured crack against nature. Peter at seven, and Peter at seven, who woke up confused and angry, who sought out _Elizabeth’s _hand first and – there was a rub – never once called him dad.__

Walter rubs his thumb against the photos, leaves behind the whorls and dips of his fingerprint, the circular spiral of identity. Is Peter’s hair lighter, he thinks, more blond than brown? He flips through the photographs, slow, fast, slow. He’s seeking out the differences because they exist and Walter doesn’t want to forget; forgetting costs too much he has come to learn. Peter was a fever from age five, burning damp, and Walter remembers the clean, boyish scent of him. His boy is thirty-two now and realistically, Walter’s known this version for exactly eight years, almost the same length of time as Walternate had him. Ironic coincidence, Walter thinks, and his gut clenches, hair rising in the tomb-like silence of his house. The dishes are stacked haphazardly, the stench of rotting food cadaver rich, the house creaks in the absence of company, a low groan of dissent. Eight is the magic ball number, infinity rising. Eight years and Walter squandered the first five before Saint Claire's, two years trying to send Peter home, the last three realising that a war was brewing, and Walter needed to win. The formative years where lying was second nature – _I work for a toothpaste company, this is your home, your memories are wrong _– until Peter grew comfortable in his nest of lies, where deceit was the bedrock of their family unit.__

The con, learned by osmosis, and perfected over the next seventeen years.

Walter has regrets, stacked up like dirty plates but Peter’s proclivity to outwit the law ranks highest at present. With the FBI, with all the resources of Massive Dynamic at hand, Agent Dunham has yet to successfully track him. Walter’s only managed to connect with Peter as an adult, Olivia’s the binding glue that holds his son close and at this stage, she alone is not enough. Walter doesn’t have the heart to say his son won’t be found, not unless Peter contacts them first.

Walter came out of Saint Claire’s greedy. He awoke hungry for ginger ale and red vines, for clean air, the freedom to follow his dreams; for his true mistress to wipe his chessboard clean. He woke up desperate for his son, for validation in the perfect form of a flower, where Peter was unquestionably _his _and Walter was still…favoured.__

He can’t give him back – just as he can’t ignore where Peter came from.

The differences, both glaringly obvious and discreet, are as plain as a strand of hair, more blond in one photograph than in another, with eyes that were born green and are now blue. The biggest lie Walter purported, falsified, was the one he told himself, that there _weren’t _any differences. His son hates custard, Walter can acknowledge; his son is a fighter, who fought tooth and nail for those few extra weeks, who stayed alive long enough for Walter to save him. The remaining Peter is not the one who loved Walter best, but he’s the one who wouldn’t give up, and the only thing Walter’s greedy for now is his allotted time, for the slow progress that can stop Walter’s heart, so fierce, with love.__

Walternate may have designed the cure, but it was Walter who delivered it. If Peter is a singularity, a fixed point in a storm of alternate realities, then Walter’s insane enough to rig the odds, to sacrifice pawns, knights, and castles too, like the child he kept as his own, Walter won't go down without a fight.


End file.
